Ever see that reflective and sweet “Peanuts” cartoon in which Linus, Lucy and Charlie Brown are on their backs on the pitcher’s mound, looking at the clouds above them and opining on what they see?
Linus sees everything from the map of “the British Honduras on the Caribbean” to an impression of “the stoning of Stephen … I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side.”
Charlie Brown? “Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind!” he says.
In this swirly, sorta-surreal and power-filled Photo of the Week, visual journalist Craig Bailey captures the moment as a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket appears to burst through a hole in the clouds after its April 29 launch from Kennedy Space Center.
So what’s behind that cloud-filled sight?
“It’s just one of those strange things objects moving faster than the speed of sound do as they travel through the atmosphere,” Bailey said.
“For that reason I try to look for something in the clouds. For a brief moment you could actually see the shock wave from the Falcon Heavy rippling through the clouds. Unfortunately, the hole you see was the most visible manifestation of the phenomenon.”
But if you look really closely, doesn’t it look just a little like a white-haired fire-eater blowing smoke rings? Or maybe … well, you decide.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Falcon Heavy powers its way through clouds in Photo of the Week
Reporting by Britt Kennerly, Florida Today / Florida Today
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
